Epic Games has added a new PSO pre-cache feature in Unreal Engine 5.1 to reduce PSO hitches in DX12 games. This new feature will aim to shorten shader compilation delays in future DX12 games (assuming those games support this new feature).
The new PSO pre-cache capability now skips rendering objects if their PSO isn't ready yet. The system strives to ensure that the PSO is ready for rendering, but it can never guarantee this. When it's too late, you can now skip object rendering rather than waiting for compilation to finish.
Epic has reduced the amount of pre-caching PSOs. Moreover, the team upgraded the old (manual) PSO caching system. Thus, developers may use it alongside the new caching mechanism.
More information on the new PSO pre-caching feature can be found here.
Whatever the case, this is fantastic news, and we can only hope that the developers will take advantage of it in their future games!
